As Z's eyes squeezed shut, Phury whispered, "You are the one she wants."
Z's reply was barely audible. "I'm contaminated. My blood will kill her."
"No. It won't."
"Please... Zsadist," Bella said.
The sound of the humble, yearning request turned Phury's ribs into a cage of ice, and he watched, frozen, numbed out, as Z slowly turned to her.
Bella stepped back a little, keeping her eyes on him.
Minutes became days... decades... centuries. And then Zsadist walked over and went inside. The door closed.
Phury was blind as he pivoted away and went down the corridor.
Wasn't there someplace he needed to be?
Class. Yes, he was going to... to teach class now.
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Chapter Seventeen
At ten after four, John climbed up into a shuttle bus lugging his duffel bag along with him.
"Hello, sire," the doggen behind the wheel said cheerfully. "Welcome."
John nodded and looked at the twelve guys who were seated in pairs and staring at him.
Whoa. Really not feeling the love here, fellas, he thought.
He took the empty seat behind the driver.
As the bus started to move, a partition came down so that the trainees were locked in the back together and none of them could see out the front. John shuffled around so he sat sideways. Keeping an eye on what was happening behind him seemed like a good idea.
The windows were all darkened, but the running lights on the floor and ceiling were bright enough so he could get a bead on his classmates. They were all like him, thin and small, though they had different hair colors, some blond, some dark. One was a redhead. Like John, they were all dressed in white martial-arts jis. And they all had the same duffel at their feet, a black nylon Nike bag big enough to fit a change of clothes and a lot of food. Each of them had a backpack, too, and he guessed they had the same stuff in it that he had in his: a note-book and some pens, a cell phone, a calculator. Tohr had sent out a list of required supplies.
John tucked his pack in close to his stomach and felt himself getting stared at. It helped to think about all the numbers he could text-message, so he repeated them in his head over and over again. Home. Wellsie's cell.
Tohr's cell. The Brotherhood's number. Sarelle's...
Thinking of her made him smile. They'd spent hours online last night. Man, IM'ing, once he got the hang of it, was the perfect way to communicate with her. With them both typing words, he felt like they were equals.
And if he'd liked her over dinner, he was really into her now.
"What's your name?"
John looked over a couple of seats. A guy with long blond hair and a diamond earring had spoken up.
At least they're using English, John thought.
As he unzipped the pack and took out a notebook, the guy said, "Hello? You deaf or something?"
John wrote his name and turned the pad around.
"John? What the hell kind of name is that? And why are you writing?"
Oh, man... This school thing was going to suck.
"What's your problem? Can't talk?"
John met the guy right in the eye. The laws of probability mandated that within every group, there was one Page 96
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alpha-male pain in the ass, and this towhead with the sparkler in his earlobe was clearly it.
John shook his head to answer the question.
"You can't speak? At all?" The guy raised his voice as if to make sure everyone heard. "What the hell are you doing training to be a soldier if you can't talk?"
You don't fight with words, do you? John wrote.
"Yeah, and all those muscles you're popping are really scary."
So are yours, he wanted to scribble.
"Why do you have a human name?" This question came from the redhead in the seat behind him.
John wrote, Raised by them, and then turned the pad around.
"Huh. Well, I'm Blaylock. John... wow, weird."
On impulse, John pulled up his sleeve and flashed the bracelet he'd made, the one with the characters he'd dreamed about on it.
Blaylock leaned over. Then his pale blue eyes shot up. "His real name's Tehrror."
Whispers. Lots of whispers.
John retracted his arm and eased back against the window again. He wished he'd kept his sleeve down. What the hell were they thinking now?
After a moment Blaylock pulled a polite one and introduced the others. They all had odd names. The blond's was Lash. And how flicking appropriate was that?
"Tehrror..." Blaylock murmured. "That's a very old name. That's a